The invention relates to the field of copier/collator installations as used to produce multiple collated sets of reproduced multi-page documents.
Various collators are known in the art (either integrated into or combined with copiers or other reproduction machines).
Cross-referenced patent application, Ser. No. 752,777 (now U.S. Pat. No. 4,134,581), filed Dec. 20, 1976, entitled "Virtual Bin Collator Control" describes a copier with an integrated multi-bin collator and contains a discussion of the prior art relating to such apparatus.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,026,543 to LeClere describes in detail a collator and its interconnection with an associated document reproduction machine.
A given copier/collator installation, as described in any of the above-referenced documents, satisfies a large number of user requirements, but obviously reaches a limit as soon as the size of the individual copy sets exceeds the capacity of the collator. Then, conventionally, the copy and collate job has to be executed in several steps. Of course, this requires manual interaction by the operator who has to merge the collated parts of the copy sets. This operator interaction is costly and may introduce mistakes by wrongly collating sets. Furthermore, if the number of copy sets to be collated exceeds the number of collator bins, the original has to be placed multiple times on the document glass depending on the collator capacity and the job size. Again, this may have to be done by the operator manually.
U.S. patent application, Ser. No. 651,883, (now U.S. Pat. No. 4,067,649) filed Jan. 23, 1976, entitled "Method and Apparatus for Controlling the Duplex Copy Mode in an Electrostatic Copying Device" describes a document reproduction machine with substantially automatic operation when duplex copying an odd number of originals. The last copy sheet from the interim storage, i.e., the duplex tray, is transported through the copier while the copy production portion is inhibited and only the paper path activated. However, the disclosure of the above application, Ser. No. 651,883 (now U.S. Pat. No. 4,067,649), filed Jan. 23, 1976, does not address the collate only mode of a copier/collator installation during which complete sheet sets are collated from any copier sheet receptacle into the collator.
It is an object of the present invention to improve the performance and capabilities of copier/collator installations.
Another object is to enable execution of copy-and-collate jobs exceeding the capacity of a given collator, thus providing a more efficient use of the installation.
A further object of the invention consists in the extended usefulness of a copier/collator installation.
Another particular object is to enable execution of collation jobs exceeding the total capacity of the collator.
A further object is to provide a versatile and adaptive copier/collator combination, obtaining the aforementioned objects.